I've never figured out why people take some of that shit to a pawn shop instead of Christies.
They explain it to customers all the time during their negotiations. "Yeah it will sell for triple my offer at an auction, but you will have to pay $$$$ upfront for catalogue fees and appraisal, then a percentage after sale, and it may take 6 months to sell".
People go to a pawn shop because they need money TODAY, bills have to be paid. They dont have any money for upfront costs, they cant wait months for the sale. They need that cash in their hand asap and thats what a pawn shop specialises in.
And it makes me wonder why Australian immigration is always boning for "high tech skills" - can't you guys think on your own?
Of course intelligent and talented people are wanted, those sort of people improve the economy, its essentially headhunting talent from other countries. There is no need for more unskilled workers, there are enough low skilled workers already looking for jobs. The high minimum wage (A$15.51 for fulltime adults, even more for casual employees), plus further retirement benefits and compulsory insurances on top means there are less low skilled jobs available. Bringing in "cheap immigrant labour" does not help the manufacturing industry etc. Because they still have to be employed on a high wage by law, which makes the job impossibly uneconomical compared with outsourcing to China.
You may want to deal with every single session cookie on every single site you visit
Thats basically what the EU wants isnt it? They want every website to give you a popup asking if they can set a cookie on your browser. Of course if you say No the website cant store your choice in a cookie, so your going to have to say No every time you visit. Sure browsers could be modified to always say Yes/No.....oh right thats exactly what they already do now.
Browser cookie blocking is superior, so why not just keep useing that instead of misguided server side permissions?
"Imagine a world without Publishers, where the folks working at the studio still get paid for the work they do"
Someone has to put down the money upfront. There may be two years worth of development before the game goes to market, thats two years of wages, rent, PC's, electricity, insurance. Then you have to put down more money for the production of physical media, even at $2 per DVD+Case+Manual its big money to lay down. There is also the legal minefield with various game mechanics patented, hand over more cash for legal experts to evaluate. Then pay for your game to be classified in a bunch of countries, who all want you to pay their fee before being allowed to distribute within the country. Marketing makes a big difference, stands at E3 aren't free, many publications will only run your "sneak peaks" for payment, games shops will only display your posters and give the premium shelf space for payment.
All that has be paid for before you start seeing any return, where does that money come from? Dont expect a bank to just swing your game studio a few million worth of loans. Return on investment is not a guaranteed thing, plenty of games fail to break even.
Its often the publishers paying all these upfront costs with advances to the games studio.
Sugar cane. Grow it, cut it down, ferment it into ethanol, burn ethanol as fuel. The problem is rainforests get cut down to grow it, and it replaces food crops in third world countries leading to famine for the poor locals who can no longer to afford the inflated food prices due to less food supply.
Driving the 356 or so miles will cost you around $75 in gas, but if you figure in the total cost, including tires, oil, depreciation (or decreased value), insurance, etc., then you are closer to $350
I drive 450 miles a week just commuting to work. The running costs are nowhere near your figures, I would be broke if they were. Nothing close to $20k is being spent on my transport costs, I would sure as hell notice if it was.
Come up with all the theoretical operating costs you want. I have "mythbusters" style of real world testing proving running costs is nothing like your figures.
I am _sick_ of companies making stupid decisions with their user interfaces. Why on EARTH would we want a nice, consistent location for a button to now become a random location on the screen?
Apple probably has a patent for "buttons in a consistent location on a device with round corners" so Android had to remove that feature to avoid spending years in court.
Suffocating rabbits to death for experimentation is cruel and inhumane
If they are conscious then thats pretty cruel to them, but I cant see a reason they wouldn't be anaesthetised. They dont feel anything or suffer if they are KO.
Something like 15 million chickens are killed daily worldwide for food, how is the deaths of a few rabbits any worse?
Methane would build up in the tubes, causing the potential for an explosion and whatever system "deals" with it can break down.
Certain animals would easily take refuge in the tubes and catch ridiculous amounts of diseases. With thousands of entrances and exits, that's a bad idea not to mention that it'd be a route directly into a building or house (potentially).
Then someone could break into the system anywhere and drop in poisonous gas that can get past methane and disease focusing blocking techniques and spread it to every building..
Are those things a major problem for the sewer system? There is more risk the water supply will be poisoned than the "garbage sewer". The garbage tubes also suck air, so unless someone rewires the system to reverse there is no threat of gas to come out of the residential tubes.
Surely Google made Motorola agree to some sort of non-compete clause? Buying a mobile device company sounds a lot like competing, trying to rebuild the division they just sold off for massive amounts of money? Buying an early player in the mobile device market suggests they are after patents and prior art which protects them from other patents.
Raises a question about whether Google got the full mobile package, or if Motorola kept some patents, IP and key staff on hand in order to stay in the mobile technology sector?
Yep and its still the same story there, only takes one state to block it. I predict there will be a dispute about what classifies as 18+, religious groups will want the current 15+ to become the new 18+, with what should be 18+ remaining banned from local sale. Backwater religious dominated state wont get their way, so will refuse to sign the new legislation.
Not holding my breath for any advancement to actually take place, all that will happen, if anything, is that current 15+ games will require 18+ photo id to purchase like alcohol.
"I live in australia and similarly have never seen guns in public"
Besides every cop, private security guards, and once you travel 100km out of the citys every farmer has a rifle in their ute. Australia is a big place, leave the sheltered world of the city and suburbs and guns (rifles, not handguns) become a standard household item.
Whatever happened to just charging a fee for attending the course? Stop trying to make extra money through textbook "upsells". Be upfront and honest by charging the book fee as part of the upfront course fees and give each student a copy.
"In my laboratory, we use ozone to purify water (read: kill bad things therein). It's nasty stuff, but it's so reactive (therefore lethal to buggies) that it disappears really fast."
Whats nasty about ozone? Its just O3. Causes things to oxidise but isnt toxic. You breath it every time you use a laser printer or photocopier, and they use it in swiming pools now (for the same water treatment as you), they use it in hydroponics to destroy mould spours.
1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
have to reinstall the engine.
5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
"Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.
6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
on five per cent of the roads.
7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.
11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or
more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
Justice Department.
12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn
how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
operate in the same manner as the old car.
13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.
Women are better at multitasking, they tend to open more tabs on the webpage than men............
Or just Spyware, people go to the Firefox webpage with their IE in order to download Firefox to replace the spyware infested IE.
I wont be to happy if the Firefox page are supporting these web tracking companys, seems a bit hypocritical when a big point of Firefox is to avoid these people.
Like you say, this is different to their normal service how? When I had Bigpond 2 years ago they had constant DNS problems and would drop out 2 or 3 times a week, for as little as 5 seconds to 5 hours. Every time their primary goes down their secondary goes with it, its like their the same server. Gave up on their DNS and just used another ISPs.
Telstra dont seem to realise how many queries computers send every time they load a page. "Oh no were being DOSed!"
Pirated software dont deserve updates. But for the car anology, if a problem was discovered with a car, say a nut on the steering was known to come loose causing the car to crash into people, you want the thieves to know they have to fix that nut wouldnt you? Because one could crash into your nice new Ferrari.
The issue with the infeted computers is they eat the nets bandwidth and get owned and send you spam instead of crashing into you.
Giving them security updates is about helping the legitimate users, not the pirated users.
This is contained in some/all of the PG ebooks, this means they have to pay royalties to PG? If so, its a good thing, helping to fund them.
"Special rules, set forth below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark." Special rules, set forth below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
"Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon University"
Slashdot Mirror
I've never figured out why people take some of that shit to a pawn shop instead of Christies.
They explain it to customers all the time during their negotiations.
"Yeah it will sell for triple my offer at an auction, but you will have to pay $$$$ upfront for catalogue fees and appraisal, then a percentage after sale, and it may take 6 months to sell".
People go to a pawn shop because they need money TODAY, bills have to be paid.
They dont have any money for upfront costs, they cant wait months for the sale. They need that cash in their hand asap and thats what a pawn shop specialises in.
And it makes me wonder why Australian immigration is always boning for "high tech skills" - can't you guys think on your own?
Of course intelligent and talented people are wanted, those sort of people improve the economy, its essentially headhunting talent from other countries.
There is no need for more unskilled workers, there are enough low skilled workers already looking for jobs.
The high minimum wage (A$15.51 for fulltime adults, even more for casual employees), plus further retirement benefits and compulsory insurances on top means there are less low skilled jobs available.
Bringing in "cheap immigrant labour" does not help the manufacturing industry etc. Because they still have to be employed on a high wage by law, which makes the job impossibly uneconomical compared with outsourcing to China.
You may want to deal with every single session cookie on every single site you visit
Thats basically what the EU wants isnt it?
They want every website to give you a popup asking if they can set a cookie on your browser.
Of course if you say No the website cant store your choice in a cookie, so your going to have to say No every time you visit.
Sure browsers could be modified to always say Yes/No.....oh right thats exactly what they already do now.
Browser cookie blocking is superior, so why not just keep useing that instead of misguided server side permissions?
"Imagine a world without Publishers, where the folks working at the studio still get paid for the work they do"
Someone has to put down the money upfront.
There may be two years worth of development before the game goes to market, thats two years of wages, rent, PC's, electricity, insurance. Then you have to put down more money for the production of physical media, even at $2 per DVD+Case+Manual its big money to lay down. There is also the legal minefield with various game mechanics patented, hand over more cash for legal experts to evaluate. Then pay for your game to be classified in a bunch of countries, who all want you to pay their fee before being allowed to distribute within the country.
Marketing makes a big difference, stands at E3 aren't free, many publications will only run your "sneak peaks" for payment, games shops will only display your posters and give the premium shelf space for payment.
All that has be paid for before you start seeing any return, where does that money come from? Dont expect a bank to just swing your game studio a few million worth of loans.
Return on investment is not a guaranteed thing, plenty of games fail to break even.
Its often the publishers paying all these upfront costs with advances to the games studio.
Solar grass?
Sugar cane. Grow it, cut it down, ferment it into ethanol, burn ethanol as fuel.
The problem is rainforests get cut down to grow it, and it replaces food crops in third world countries leading to famine for the poor locals who can no longer to afford the inflated food prices due to less food supply.
Driving the 356 or so miles will cost you around $75 in gas, but if you figure in the total cost, including tires, oil, depreciation (or decreased value), insurance, etc., then you are closer to $350
I drive 450 miles a week just commuting to work.
The running costs are nowhere near your figures, I would be broke if they were. Nothing close to $20k is being spent on my transport costs, I would sure as hell notice if it was.
Come up with all the theoretical operating costs you want. I have "mythbusters" style of real world testing proving running costs is nothing like your figures.
I am _sick_ of companies making stupid decisions with their user interfaces. Why on EARTH would we want a nice, consistent location for a button to now become a random location on the screen?
Apple probably has a patent for "buttons in a consistent location on a device with round corners" so Android had to remove that feature to avoid spending years in court.
Suffocating rabbits to death for experimentation is cruel and inhumane
If they are conscious then thats pretty cruel to them, but I cant see a reason they wouldn't be anaesthetised.
They dont feel anything or suffer if they are KO.
Something like 15 million chickens are killed daily worldwide for food, how is the deaths of a few rabbits any worse?
Methane would build up in the tubes, causing the potential for an explosion and whatever system "deals" with it can break down.
Certain animals would easily take refuge in the tubes and catch ridiculous amounts of diseases. With thousands of entrances and exits, that's a bad idea not to mention that it'd be a route directly into a building or house (potentially).
Then someone could break into the system anywhere and drop in poisonous gas that can get past methane and disease focusing blocking techniques and spread it to every building. .
Are those things a major problem for the sewer system?
There is more risk the water supply will be poisoned than the "garbage sewer". The garbage tubes also suck air, so unless someone rewires the system to reverse there is no threat of gas to come out of the residential tubes.
Surely Google made Motorola agree to some sort of non-compete clause?
Buying a mobile device company sounds a lot like competing, trying to rebuild the division they just sold off for massive amounts of money?
Buying an early player in the mobile device market suggests they are after patents and prior art which protects them from other patents.
Raises a question about whether Google got the full mobile package, or if Motorola kept some patents, IP and key staff on hand in order to stay in the mobile technology sector?
since classification remains a state issue
Yep and its still the same story there, only takes one state to block it.
I predict there will be a dispute about what classifies as 18+, religious groups will want the current 15+ to become the new 18+, with what should be 18+ remaining banned from local sale. Backwater religious dominated state wont get their way, so will refuse to sign the new legislation.
Not holding my breath for any advancement to actually take place, all that will happen, if anything, is that current 15+ games will require 18+ photo id to purchase like alcohol.
"I live in australia and similarly have never seen guns in public"
Besides every cop, private security guards, and once you travel 100km out of the citys every farmer has a rifle in their ute.
Australia is a big place, leave the sheltered world of the city and suburbs and guns (rifles, not handguns) become a standard household item.
Whatever happened to just charging a fee for attending the course?
Stop trying to make extra money through textbook "upsells". Be upfront and honest by charging the book fee as part of the upfront course fees and give each student a copy.
"In my laboratory, we use ozone to purify water (read: kill bad things therein). It's nasty stuff, but it's so reactive (therefore lethal to buggies) that it disappears really fast."
Whats nasty about ozone? Its just O3.
Causes things to oxidise but isnt toxic. You breath it every time you use a laser printer or photocopier, and they use it in swiming pools now (for the same water treatment as you), they use it in hydroponics to destroy mould spours.
All that has to happen now is that probe they are planning to crash into the moon to go off course and destroy the landing site for my predictions to be complete.1 1/0036205
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/
"Why would ants travel 50% further or less because of a 1mm (+/-) change in their leg length?
Proportionally, 1mm is a very small change."
Dont know how long the ants legs are where you come from, but around here 1mm is a major proportion of ant leg!
I bet this thing crashes into the Apollo landing site, conveniantly destroying all traces of its existance (or non existance).
NASA:"Opps, you will just have to take our word for it now and stop asking us to prove it"
Oh no, its coming true.
If Microsoft made cars:
1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
have to reinstall the engine.
5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
"Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.
6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
on five per cent of the roads.
7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.
11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or
more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
Justice Department.
12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn
how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
operate in the same manner as the old car.
13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.
And what if the system malfunctions and you are unable to get to the hospital in time and someone dies?
Car alarms with immobilisers often fail, I havnt heard of anyone being sued over that.
Women are better at multitasking, they tend to open more tabs on the webpage than men............
Or just Spyware, people go to the Firefox webpage with their IE in order to download Firefox to replace the spyware infested IE.
I wont be to happy if the Firefox page are supporting these web tracking companys, seems a bit hypocritical when a big point of Firefox is to avoid these people.
Like you say, this is different to their normal service how?
When I had Bigpond 2 years ago they had constant DNS problems and would drop out 2 or 3 times a week, for as little as 5 seconds to 5 hours.
Every time their primary goes down their secondary goes with it, its like their the same server.
Gave up on their DNS and just used another ISPs.
Telstra dont seem to realise how many queries computers send every time they load a page. "Oh no were being DOSed!"
There are probably registry hacks to restore most features and remove the limits anyway. 3 apps is useless for anything.
Like the registry key you can change to remove the 5-10 network logins limit on Home and Pro editions.
"Introducing Microsoft Condom 3.0, now it actually prevents pregnancy!"
Yes, provided you install all 146 hotfix patches before use.
Pirated software dont deserve updates. But for the car anology, if a problem was discovered with a car, say a nut on the steering was known to come loose causing the car to crash into people, you want the thieves to know they have to fix that nut wouldnt you? Because one could crash into your nice new Ferrari.
The issue with the infeted computers is they eat the nets bandwidth and get owned and send you spam instead of crashing into you.
Giving them security updates is about helping the legitimate users, not the pirated users.
This is contained in some/all of the PG ebooks, this means they have to pay royalties to PG? If so, its a good thing, helping to fund them.
"Special rules, set forth below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark."
Special rules, set forth below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
"Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon University"